About v1
The first version of the COB About page.
Welcome to The Century of Biology
We are living through a remarkable revolution. Progress in our understanding of biology is accelerating at a rapid pace as new foundational technologies have emerged. Advances in DNA sequencing technology have outpaced Moore’s Law, becoming the “broadly enabling microscope” of the 21st century.1 The Nobel winning discovery of CRISPR has turned graduate students into sophisticated gene editors. DNA synthesis technology has turned libraries of designed nucleic acids into a consumer product. Collectively, these technologies reflect the fact that our ability to read, edit, and write DNA has changed in a dramatic way.
A Shift in Communication
During this paradigm shift, the adoption of new forms of communications such as pre-prints have also grown at an exponential rate2:
As an engineer and researcher in the field of genomics and bioinformatics, keeping up-to-date with this flood of exciting new research can be overwhelming. Each day, I receive far more awesome papers in my bioRxiv collection alerts and curated e-TOCs (email table-of-contents) than I can possibly read or fully appreciate.
About This Newsletter
My goal in starting this newsletter is to make a small contribution for other people who have felt this sensation. With this newsletter, I will deliver free emails to your inbox highlighting open-access preprints or articles that made me especially excited. Hopefully this will help you learn about papers that you might not otherwise read, or help you uncover a topic that you might want to dive into more deeply.
What to Expect
Emails delivered to your inbox highlighting exciting new findings
An emphasis on genetics, genomics, and bioinformatics
Occasional posts on papers from synthetic biology and systems biology
What Not to Expect
Peer review! The goal of this newsletter is in no way shape or form to serve as a type of peer review of the articles that are highlighted.
Negativity. I want to highlight advances and results that excite me. Don’t expect harsh critiques of papers, or critical emphasis on the shortcomings of works in progress that have bravely been made openly available.
How to Subscribe
I hope that you’ll join me in exploring and keeping and up with the rapid progress in the life sciences in the 21st century! To subscribe, use the link below
If you know somebody that you think would enjoy this newsletter, please share it with them!
I think that this is a great framing from Jay Shendure (https://shendure-web.gs.washington.edu/research.html)
bioRxiv: the preprint server for biology (link: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/833400v1)